D&D 5E Low Level Wizards Really Do Suck in 5E

[Mistwell]

My wife has a Bard and took Silence as her second level spell. She took Silence for one reason and one reason only. To slow up enemy spell casters. That's it. She faced off against an enemy Cleric and could not even cast the spell. The cleric was some distance back in a larger room (about 60x80) and all the cleric would have had to do each round was move out of the area of effect. My wife would have had to cast the spell 3 times to guarantee a result.

The main purpose of the spell historically in D&D, totally defeated by the 5E rules. And yes, if the DM rolls for a random direction for the Cleric to move (and ignores the fact that the DM knows where the spell effect is) and my wife would have known to not center the spell on the Cleric, it could have prevented the Cleric from casting for a single round. But still, that's a stretch. The spell is farily situational. It only works real well if the enemy cannot move 25 feet and get out of it (like in a smaller room with no exits on the other side). Unfortunately for my wife, that was not the case that day. She had gone out of her way to handle this one situation and the one time it happens, the spell is for all intents and purposes useless because WotC nerfed 5E spells.

Silence is best combined with a grappler. Bards make good grapplers.

 

[raleel]

Agreed. I don't need to shine all of the time. I just need to contribute somewhat when I cast a spell. It often doesn't happen.

Me: "I cast Fog Cloud around us to protect the other PCs."
DM: "It doesn't help. The enemies knew which hexes the PCs were in and the spell doesn't affect their to hit at all. Advantage cancels out disadvantage. And, the PCs are now at disadvantage to attack."
Me: "WT?"

yea... this is why I like the IDEA of fog cloud, but I don't think it comes off well in combat. It is good for hiding, though. If you can get it in before combat, it's lots of portable cover. If you can hold archers in it, it makes them suck.

I'm starting to thing that the main way to shine with a low level 5E wizard is with the Sleep spell or with Illusions. Everything else is just so situational and subpar. Even good sounding spells like Grease are SO situational, In a small area, yeah, Grease can help. In a large area? Really situational.

I hate to say this, but it is fairly true. Sleep is big and has a big effect. Illusions are mechanically good.

Grease is good, but requires teamwork and is quite situational. I know what you are saying about the big areas. Hard to manage.

Playing a wizard is harder than it used to be.

 

[Psikerlord#]

I'm not just trying to do damage. In fact, I rarely cast damaging spells. This was a big day for my PC because he actually did something (first time he cast Burning Hands, first time he cast Scorching Ray).

Help me out here. Instead of just stating an opinion, SHOW me which spells can be helpful.

As far as I can tell low level wizard damage is moderate at best. Instead, focus on spells like sleep (even casting it in higher level slots), esp once some monsters have been whittled down a little, it can be a great finisher. Web. Hold Person. Magic missile for auto damage finisher. Flaming sphere. Then lots of utility, which is really the wizards place to shine - silent image, comprehend lang, unseen servant, cantrips like mage hand, presdigititation, minor image, alarm, as many rituals as you can get (esp find familiar - get one!), detect thoughts, alter self, arcane lock, suggestion, invisibility, phantom force, rope trick if you feel like helping the short rest classes shine more, spider climb. Wizards arent for damage in 5e, except maybe AoE once you are 5th, but even then, AoE is typically the worst kind of damage to do, you are better off focus firing one guy down than hurting 3 guys a little bit.

Also abjurer is underpowered. I would recommend diviner (awesome 2d20 thing) or transmuter for their very handy philosophers stone at 6th (which amongst other things can give you con save prof, great for concentration casters), or if you reeeeally want to go blaster, evoker (coz standing in the middle of your own fireball is COOL).

Hope this helps

 

[Sacrosanct]

this thread appears to be heading down the same path as your "I beat Cyanwrath" thread, KD.. One has to ask, if you're constantly getting this frustrated, will you go back to an edition you like better?

 

[MoonSong]

Yup. Again, if you adjudicate with some set of real world aesthetics that the rules do not actually have, then yes, a lot more "players talk the DM into gaining an edge" things are possible in the game.

I will point out that we use hexes in our game, so some of the stuff that you talk about just do not work for our table.

Plus, there are always examples where "Woo Hoo, the wizard did great.". In 20 encounters and about 60 to 70 rounds, I've seen it happen about 5 times. Maybe.

I'm starting to thing that the main way to shine with a low level 5E wizard is with the Sleep spell or with Illusions. Everything else is just so situational and subpar. Even good sounding spells like Grease are SO situational, In a small area, yeah, Grease can help. In a large area? Really situational.


My wife has a Bard and took Silence as her second level spell. She took Silence for one reason and one reason only. To slow up enemy spell casters. That's it. She faced off against an enemy Cleric and could not even cast the spell. The cleric was some distance back in a larger room (about 60x80) and all the cleric would have had to do each round was move out of the area of effect. My wife would have had to cast the spell 3 times to guarantee a result.

The main purpose of the spell historically in D&D, totally defeated by the 5E rules. And yes, if the DM rolls for a random direction for the Cleric to move (and ignores the fact that the DM knows where the spell effect is) and my wife would have known to not center the spell on the Cleric, it could have prevented the Cleric from casting for a single round. But still, that's a stretch. The spell is farily situational. It only works real well if the enemy cannot move 25 feet and get out of it (like in a smaller room with no exits on the other side). Unfortunately for my wife, that was not the case that day. She had gone out of her way to handle this one situation and the one time it happens, the spell is for all intents and purposes useless because WotC nerfed 5E spells.

Well, you should try to play a sorcerer then, wizards are broken in comparison (all a low level sorcerer brings to the party is "I can talk to dragons" or "sometimes you shouldn't be near me", at least as a wizard you have ritual casting and twice the spell options at a given time). The problem with the spells is a genuine one however, and one I always held would be an issue. And it all comes with the design decision to aply preppared spontaneous as the default, or perhaps that the designers went too far with niche protection. Or both. A problem they failed to detect is that a preppared caster could potentially get away with very situational spells, but non preppared casters pick spells for a purpose, and it rather deliver on that investment. However many are too situational for even non- specialists. And for all talk about being flexible, the spells force a certain way of play, all low level wizards rather take sleep, it is not their job to do damage, all sorcerers rather go pew-pew, nontheir job to be utility, all clerics prepare cure wounds, all necromancers are evil and so on.

Playing a wizard is harder than it used to be.

And sorcerer's are even harder, taking into account they used to be dead simple and have way less options than wizards.

 

[KarinsDad]

Could you break out your math on this?

3 * (.35 * 3 + .65 * 7) = 16.8

3 * (.5 * 3 + .5 * 7) = 15

 

[BrockBallingdark]

Always loved wizards, only guy at my table that plays wizards. I have no problem with my wizard in 5E and ran him through HotDQ, not feeling unpowered. I really thing it's about play style and working as a team with the other characters in combat.

 

[Celtavian]

The 5E wizard is weaker than its past edition counterparts, especially the 3rd edition wizard. I believe that was the intent of the design team. They wanted to substantially reduce the power of magic in 5E. That was definitely accomplished. If the expectation is to be as strong as past edition wizards impressively trivializing encounters, then that is not going to happen near as often as prior editions. Anyone that says casters were in anyway equal to melees in past editions is either delusional or lying. We all know in past editions magic was king and started to become so relatively early, say around level 5 or so, though you still had some powerful spells like color spray at low level. If you don't like wizards being equal to other classes, then you won't like 5E. You should probably start playing a different edition or write extensive house rules for magic. It won't be changing.

Now is the wizard ineffective? Nope, not at all. I'm enjoying playing my wizard. I like playing a wizard that doesn't need to be a cookie cutter build or robed figure standing in the back.

I made a forest gnome wizard with the urchin background. He doesn't even know he's a wizard. He's an orphaned forest gnome who befriended rats. They found him a spell book in the sewers he retrieved and studied. That is how he learned magic. This littler urchin gnome has no knowledge-arcane or the like. I like playing this unique type of background. No longer do I need Spellcraft or the like.

The spells I've found useful:
1. Fire Bolt: I can use this to consistently do damage from range. I usually plant myself behind some cover and launch bolts of fire at enemies fighting the martials.

2. Minor Illusion: I use this for scouting or hiding. He'll make himself look like a bush or a barrel. He'll blend a tunnel entrance into a stone wall if its small enough. He'll hide inside a rock. This is a versatile, fun cantrip.

3. Sleep: I'll use it to drop a few weak combatants or a strong one that's been reduced. It can be highly useful for reducing the number of incoming attacks or shortening a combat.

4. Flaming Sphere: This is one of the few useful battlefield control spells. You can use it do a little damage each round. Mostly it's a nice spell for forcing the opponent to move or take damage. If you work with your allies, it can be a highly effective battlefield control spell.

5. Shield: Excellent defensive spell for the few times you do get attacked. Glad you get to choose to use it after seeing the roll. Otherwise this spell would be much less useful. It can give you a nice AC boost to avoid a hit.

6. Tasha's Hideous Laughter: Nice for preventing damage for a round or two and giving your melees advantage on attacks. This spell can be used on big brute type creatures. You can often get a round in about 60 to 70% of the time. The rolling every round makes spells like this much less useful. But even a round or two of this spell can make a fight much, much easier. Martial PCs can be do a lot of damage with a round or two of advantage. It reduces incoming damage as well meaning you can save someone from a big hit or two. This can be a very nice spell when it lands.

7. Find Familiar: Great for scouting. Nice to be able to change your familiar's forms. You can give yourself or allies advantage on a single attack using the Help action with your familiar. You can also deliver a touch spell like Vampiric Touch or Shocking Grasp with your familiar while you do other things. Pretty potent familiar spell.

That's what I've been using most up to level 4 as a wizard. I made level 5 last session. I picked up fireball and fly. They still seem solid since there are far fewer ways to fly in the game now. I want to make sure if we fight a flying creature with ranged attacks or reach, we were prepared to deal with them. I want to see how Fireball does for burst damage.

All I know is that I'm still having fun with the wizard. He's weaker than past editions without access to disposable magic and the save every round paradigm. I'm finding the wizard is still effective and can do things few of the other party members can do. Martials do better damage, but they're about useless for combat utility, battlefield control, or group defense. This is the same as old editions. Whereas the wizard can still pull out an illusion, a fog cloud, web, or some other thing that no martial can do unless he also has casting ability and took the appropriate spell. Wizards definitely have the most spell versatility of any of the caster classes. My buddy is playing a bard. That's a quality class. He can't touch my spell versatility. His spell options are set once he chooses them. Mine can change every day. Arcane Recovery is a damn nice ability to recover slots during a short rest. Allows the wizard slightly more spell casting durability than other caster classes.

I think the wizard is going to be quite potent at high level. Some of their high level abilities are amazing. A martial class can't touch shapechange or foresight.

 

[Celtavian]

Low-mid level wizard is fine, a solid middle-tier class IME/IMO.

High level wizard, with ultra-few 6-9th slots and almost everything resistant to energy & magic, auto-saving legendaries, etc. Now that is my worry - we'll see when enough people have had enough time to put the system through its paces at HL.

True. I don't plan to pick up any high level save spells. They would be fairly useless unless they have an instantaneous affect that is substantial even if they save.

 

[Celtavian]

Seriously. How often does this come up in people's games? How often do NPCs heal?

How often in your game did it actually prevent a target from regaining hit points? Ever?

We recently fought a priest that was healing themselves and their allies. It came up in that battle. I figure any time we run into an evil priest, it will be pretty major. I think it will be highly useful at high level if we run into priests with heal. A 70 hit point boost is pretty big. I don't know what heals and what doesn't. I like having something ready for dealing with it.